Humans are predictable. Magicians have taken advantage of this predictability for generations. Knowing how to read people helps you significantly in your negotiations, persuasions and overall communications. This ability to predict human behaviour is often related to our evolutionary past. As we have evolved to survive in our environment, we have acquired a lot of “hardwiring” in our brain which now simply dictate our behaviour. We are all too familiar with some of the common behaviours such as seeking water when thirsty or wanting to leave the meeting room when we can no longer hold it.

However, some of these hardwiring and their consequences are more subtle and a careful observation can give the observer a significant advantage in predicting the eventual behaviour.

In this article, a particularly useful body language technique is presented that helps you read people and understand what they are likely to do before they do it and to use this knowledge to your advantage.

This is a simple yet powerful exercise in getting people to share their perception about others. Sometimes seeing the world from another person’s point of view can have a significant benefit for us. This exercise facilitates this process and is most ideal for delegates who know each other so you can use this as part of a team building course.

This activity allows people to help each other anonymously. Sometimes we may feel stuck or wonder what we could do to improve our behaviour or skills. We may however not feel comfortable to directly ask others about them. This exercise sets the scene for people to open up and help each without fear of being wrong or obvious.

This exercise helps delegates to better understand each other and also gives them an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback. It is a rather simple exercise though can be quite revealing as people get to understand what others think of them. The exercise works best when a lot of people are involved (for better anonymity) and who know each other well (for better feedback).

This is a suitable exercise for getting people in a team to express their feelings about each other but in a very indirect and controlled way. It also gives delegates a chance to see how others think of them. It also helps them to discover how much they know about other people’s view of them. This exercise is suitable for a group of delegates who know each other.

We all have different levels of trust in different situations. Sometimes the variation is not much and sometimes it is too high. We seem to be defensive and on guard while others feel comfortable. This is usually to do with our previous experiences as we derive our grand rules from our life experience. It pays to know how others feel in certain situations, so you can become aware of your trust level and how you compare with others.

Knowing how we feel is part of our self-awareness. The more we are aware of our feelings, the better we can control our behaviours and understand those of others. This exercise helps delegates to become more aware of their emotions and learn to describe them. It also encourages them to think of ways to get to a target emotion, such as happiness.

Being a good person or a leader requires a good vision, persistence, definite plans and an ability to reflect on your current state so you can see what you need to do next to get there. This exercise helps delegates to think about themselves from a point of view placed in the future so they can better see what they want to get and if they are going in a wrong direction.

Some leaders seem to be too controlling. They want to exert their power and position on others to get them do what they want. On the other hand, some leaders seem to understand others and are much friendlier and open to new ideas. They seem to be much more logical and are viewed much more positively than those who are too controlling.

Research shows that those who are too controlling of others and their environment are usually insecure. Their insecurity is expressed by forcing others to comply and they see this as the only way to bring balance to their world.

This exercise helps delegates to become more aware of this concept and learn how to ask questions from themselves on how they treat others.

This activity allows delegates to find more information about their colleagues and represent them as a potential model employee for their company. This exercise encourages team building by recognising and respecting team mate’s knowledge and expertise and help to build better team relationships. This activity can be used for people who already work with each other since it emphasises their good qualities. The exercise can also be used as an ice breaker to get people to know more about each other.

This exercise has been designed for people who work in the same team. It is very effective in discovering strengths and weaknesses of teams, in particular those of newly formed teams. This activity allows team members to share their views on positive and negative aspects of their team and therefore seek ways to improve them.

This is a great exercise to get the delegates to pay attention to where they are in life and perhaps where they want to go. It is a good eye opener, so it is ideal when you want to talk about motivation or want to energise team members. It is also ideal for use in coaching sessions.

Deadlines are a fact of modern life and professionals in just about any role need to be able to efficiently deal with them. However, people deal with deadlines in different ways based on their personality. Deadlines can be stressful and the way people deal with this stress usually comes to define their success and subsequently the success of the team, especially when things go wrong. This article shows why everyone, team members or managers, must be aware of these differences and make decisions based on this knowledge.

What process should you follow when delivering an appraisal? Which areas are critical? Should you focus on objectives, on personality or on group adaptability? This article explores the concept, ideas and tasks an appraiser should consider when promoting an employee.